1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a library apparatus which performs recording or regeneration by taking out a cartridge tape housed in a cell on a cartridge housing shelf on the basis of a hose command by means of a conveying robot, conveying the same to a tape drive, and charging the same therein, a control method thereof, and a program therefore. In particular, it relates to a library apparatus which manages maintenance and replacement of constituent modules by the use of radio tags, a control method thereof and a program therefore.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional library apparatus, a plurality of housing cells of a housing shelf provided in an enclosure keep medium cartridges such as magnetic tape cartridges in units of cells. The medium cartridge is picked up by a conveying robot from the housing cell designated as the destination on the basis of a conveying command from the host. The medium cartridge is conveyed to the drive module which is the destination designated by the conveying command and charged therein to perform recording or regeneration of the medium. For a medium cartridge after recording or regeneration, the medium cartridge is picked up by the conveying robot from the drive module designated as the destination on the basis of the conveying command from the host, and is conveyed and returned for housing the same at the destination designated in the conveying command.
In such a library apparatus, an operating unit such as a linear guide or a bearing and a driving unit such as a DC/AC servo motor, a gear motor, or a stepping motor are mounted on the conveying robot. The number of operating runs guaranteeing the operation is limited both for the operating unit and the driving unit. In the conventional library apparatus, therefore, operating conditions for the conveying robot and the tape drive are assumed for selecting operating parts and mechanism parts to generate a service life of a library apparatus. Depending upon the environment of use of the library apparatus, however, the assumed conditions of use are sometimes exceeded, and in some library apparatuses, the number of operating runs corresponding to the full service life may be exceeded before the lapse of years of life. In some cases, troubles may be caused before the lapse of years of life. In the conventional library apparatus, therefore, the life for parts replacement is managed relative to the number of operating runs representing the life, by accumulating statistical information such as the number of operating runs for the individual modules including the conveying robot and the tape drive.
However, in the life management method of the conventional library apparatus, when a mechanical unit or a driving unit in failure of a module is replaced, the maintenance operator manually clears the number of operating runs of the replaced module. The complicated procedure for maintenance and replacement often leads to omission in practice or negligence. This results in a problem in that the function of urging parts replacement in units of modules by automatically detecting approach of the lapse of the life by means of the number of runs managed by a library apparatus cannot fully display the practical advantages. When replacing a tape drive, it is necessary to re-adjust the alignment to ensure the conveying robot property handles the tape cartridge relative to the tape drive, and to conduct the maintenance operation of setting again the intrinsic setting information before replacement for the drive after replacement. If an error occurs in these maintenance operations, the drive cannot properly be connected to the host, or an incorrect alignment may lead to a failure of cartridge tape handling by the conveying robot.